


you are bright and i am blind

by CallMeBombshell



Series: in all these ways we come together [4]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, accidental date, weird food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So it was either one of several ill-advised not-quite dates,” Jason sums up after a moment, “your big brother, or me. More or less.”</p>
<p>“More or less,” Tim agrees, leaning back again and humming slightly around the rim of his glass. </p>
<p>Jason shakes his head slightly. “Well, sorry you got stuck with me, then,” he says, self-deprecating little grin spreading across his face.</p>
<p>“I’m not,” Tim says, smiling that same damned unreadable Cheshire Cat smile that he’s been wearing all night. “After all, you were my first choice.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you are bright and i am blind

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [如阳光耀眼夺目 / you are bright and i am blind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047913) by [blurryyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurryyou/pseuds/blurryyou)



> as always, huge thanks to [sam](http://latenightcuppa.tumblr.com) for being my cheerleader and brainstorm buddy and generally being awesome and helping me write this <3

The first text comes at 9:23 on a Thursday morning.

Jason’s phone gives a little chirp, loud enough to rouse him from where he’d been still mostly-asleep, face buried in his pillow. For a moment, he’s not entirely certain he heard it. There aren’t that many people who might text him, especially not at nearly half past nine in the morning; after all, he’s not exactly popular. In an emergency, Oracle might call, or Dick, but mostly Jason’s phone just gets used for ordering food.

His phone chirps again, unmistakable for all that he rarely hears the tone. Jason raises his head, blinking blearily at it, then stretches out an arm to grab it off his nightstand. He scrubs a hand over his eyes while he thumbs the lock screen away. There are two texts waiting for him, both from an number he doesn’t recognize.

_economics is the worst, i would be a terrible banker_ , the first one reads.

_also your number was much easier to find than i thought it would be_ , adds the second.

Jason’s frowning at the two messages, thumb hovering over the reply button, about to ask _who the fuck are you and why are you talking to me_ when the third message chimes.

_by the way this is tim_ , it says, and well. Alright then.

_you woke me up to bitch about economics_ , Jason sends back after a moment. _i hope youre happy baby bird_.

_ecstatic_ , Tim responds.

  
  
  
  


The texts continue to come, sporadic and irregular, but just frequent enough to still feel something like a conversation.

_short essay response questions are the worst_ , Tim sends him, and _do you think it’s cheating if i use my old photos for my city streets assignment?_ and _i think my professor might actually be a zombie._

Jason responds to them each in turn, sometimes as soon as they come in, if he’s at home, and sometimes hours later if he’s out. _bullshit alot_ he sends, and _only if they catch you_ , and _good thing youve got no brains then._

Sometimes Tim texts him random things, a funny comment Batgirl made, a bizarre fact about the illegality of riding a camel down a city street, a picture of something interesting he spots while he’s out on patrol. Jason never texts him first, and neither of them ever call the other, but it doesn’t seem to bother Tim at all; he just continues sending Jason little messages every day or two.

It’s nothing personal, mostly, just random not-quite conversations, more small talk than anything, but there’s something about them that has Jason smiling slightly every time he hears his phone chime.

Maybe it’s because of how they started, Jason hurt and angry and Tim jaded and disillusioned and both of them trying to prove something to the other, to everyone else. Maybe it’s because, of all of them in their dysfunctional little group, Tim is the one he feels the closest to. Maybe it’s because of the way they’ve come together, the ease with which they slipped, wordlessly, unconsciously, into this strange friendship.

Maybe it’s because it means that Tim’s thinking about him; that he’d reached out, specifically, to Jason; that he didn’t just run into him and decide to chat for a while. Maybe it’s because Jason likes the idea that maybe Tim actually likes talking to him; that he shares these little things, inconsequential but still interesting, because he wants Jason to know these parts of him.

Whatever the case, that little chime never fails to send a sort of flush through Jason’s system, something a little warm and a little ridiculous, something that makes the corners of his mouth turn up before he even realizes he’s doing it. There’s something at the back of Jason’s mind each time, a realization, maybe, or a confirmation of something he already knows but won’t let himself acknowledge. But he’s learned by now not to get too far ahead of himself, too wary of the way things have a tendency to fall in on him the moment he thinks they’re solid.

So he goes about his business as usual, and if he keeps half an ear out for the sound of his phone chiming away in his pocket, well, so long as it doesn’t affect his work, then who needs to know?

  
  
  
  


The Carriage House sits on the corner of two narrow streets off the main drag at the southeast edge of Burnley, tucked in next to a fish market and a bodega which keeps bizarre and flexible hours. It’s the kind of upscale restaurant that used to cater to mob bosses and kingpins, all old-school class and dark wood, discrete signage on the door and a general air of invisibility ensuring that most people walked right on by without ever noticing. It was home to arms sales, drug operations, shady dealings of all sorts, and its chefs boasted a killer bacon-wrapped filet mignon if you knew to ask for it.

These days, however, the Carriage House is under new management, young and sharp and fresh out of business school, eager to turn their refurbished cash cow into a veritable feast of opportunities to spot the rich and powerful, the famous and influential, the good and the great.

The remodel has been in the papers for nearly a year, status updates available everywhere, new pictures every week and bold statements every month about the energizing effect the newly-reopened restaurant will have on the neighborhood’s “dwindling culture”. The menu has been carefully selected to offer only the finest in the new science of modernist cuisine. The wine list goes on for six pages; there are a hundred and seventeen specialty cocktails on offer, all flavors and types and proofs of alcohol imaginable.

As part of their marketing scheme, the restaurant managers send out invitations, flashy and bold and highly-publicised, to several of the city’s biggest and most important names. They invite the recipients to a special opening night gala dinner, celebrating “the return of life to a neighborhood long left behind.” There will be four courses, all hand-picked to be the best the new chefs have to offer; there will be special drinks, each to match the party’s theme in dedication to the city’s various neighborhoods; there will be politicians and socialites and various of the rich and famous, and press and cameras absolutely everywhere.

Jason discovers all of this at 4:17 on a Wednesday afternoon when Tim calls him, exasperated and flustered, and asks if he wants to have dinner on Saturday.

Jason blinks, pulling the phone away from his ear to stare at it. He can practically hear Tim’s anxious silence on the other end. He puts the phone back to his ear and says, very eloquently, “Er…”

“Look,” Tim says, his impatient huff of breath crackling static down the line. “I wouldn’t be asking, except they really want the _Wayne heir_ to show, and I don’t have an excuse to avoid it that won’t be questioned.”

“What about just, _I don’t want to go?_ ” Jason asks, nonplussed. “I mean, it’s not like this is the president or some shit, right?”

“I almost wish it was,” Tim says, somewhat mournfully. “At least in politics people understand being too busy for pointless dinners. But noooo,” he draws the sound out, “this is _society._ ”

Jason waits a beat, expecting a punchline; when it doesn’t come, he shrugs, even though Tim can’t see it. “Okay, I’ll bite. I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”

“The difference,” Tim grouses, “is that while politicians are like vultures, these people are like the creeps that will climb your back fence and stare through your bushes into your house if they get even the slightest hint that there’s a possibility that maybe there’s something potentially at some point allegedly happening.”

Jason blinks, trying to make sense of that incredibly convoluted sentence; it honest-to-god makes his head hurt a little. “So, basically, what you’re saying is that they’d notice if you didn’t show.”

“And they’d all make it out to be something huge and scandalous and horrible,” Tim confirms. “Which I could maybe have gotten away with a few years ago, but now—”

“Now you’re the heir and public face of Wayne Enterprises,” Jason finishes, pulling a face. He’s never been more grateful that he’d never had to deal with this shit after Bruce adopted him.

“Which means, basically,” Tim is saying, “that I have to go to this stupid opening night dinner because if I don’t, I run the risk of making the company look bad.” Jason can just about picture the roll of Tim’s eyes, the jerky, irritated wave of his hands.

Jason huffs out an irritated breath. “How the fuck does that even work?” he wonders. “You just said, it’s a society thing, not a business dinner.”

“Just trust me,” Tim says darkly. “If I don’t show up, next thing you know, all the gossip columns will be talking about how the heir to one of Gotham’s most important companies, a decades-strong pillar of society and all-around savior of the community, couldn’t even be bothered to show his support for the rejuvenation and revitalization of the city.”

Jason opens his mouth, realises he doesn’t know what to say, and closes it again. After a moment he says, “Are you certain you’re not just being paranoid? Because I think I hear the sound of tinfoil being crumpled in the background.”

“I wish,” Tim groans. “My life would be so much easier if I could just solve this with a tinfoil hat.” He makes a rough sound which comes across as largely static, but seems to perfectly convey frustration and dread in equal measure.

“This is all Bruce’s fault,” Tim goes on. “He crafted this stupid party boy persona, so now it’s expected that I’m going to be the same and go to all the parties, and all the functions, and all the stupid fancy opening night exclusive dinners.”

“Sounds rough,” Jason says honestly.

Jason knows he’s gotten off relatively easy with the whole secret identity thing; after all, with Jason Todd legally dead, he’s free to basically just be himself out on the streets. He doesn’t carry openly when he’s not on patrol, but he can’t deny that these days, the only real difference between Jason Todd and the Red Hood is that one of them doesn’t wear a mask.

Tim has it differently. The kid’s been throwing on masks since long before he first donned the green domino. Timothy Drake is not Tim Drake, is not Robin, is not Red Robin, is not the kid that Jason’s been getting to know the last few months.

But he does know that this is the face that Tim hates wearing the most. Tim can slip into Robin in the blink of an eye, the mask almost as much a part of him as his own skin. Jason can’t imagine how different and how horrible it must be to have to put on the whole rich socialite show in front of dozens, maybe hundreds of other people, all of them watching with hawk eyes and bated breath for the moment you slip up and make a single wrong move.

Painted that way, Jason thinks, it’s no wonder Tim decided early that he’d rather be wearing a mask and running around on rooftops chasing criminals in the middle of the night.

“So will you please come?” Tim asks again.

He sounds tired, worn out and worn down, and it makes something in Jason’s chest twinge unpleasantly. Tim’s only eighteen; he shouldn’t be sounding like a man rapidly approaching the end of his rope.

But Jason is learning, slowly, that Tim has always been one to work too hard and too long, always been one to insist, quietly and subtly, on shouldering burdens that were too large and too daunting for him to bear alone, if only because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else bearing them, either. This job he’s working as liaison between Lucius Fox and Wayne Enterprises’ board of directors has pulled him thin, stressed and overworked in such a way that even Jason, relatively unversed as he is in the Ways And Mannerisms Of Timothy Drake, can see plain as day.

Jason just isn’t sure how he’s supposed to help with that, or if he even can, if that’s even what Tim is asking, or if he’s only asking because...because what? Because he wants to mess with the press? Because there’s no one else he can ask? Because they’re supposed to be family? Because he actually wants Jason to come?

Jason may never have played the fancy rich boy with Bruce when he was younger, he may never have had to put on the kind of production that Tim’s had to play since he was a kid. But Jason knows a little of how these things work. Tim will be expected to show up with some girl on his arm, some candy-sweet plaything as befits the young heir to two fortunes and a major corporation. There’s a role he’s expected to fill for these people by doing this, and he’s already admitted that they’ll be watching him carefully, looking for anything untoward which they can tear to pieces for their own entertainment.

So why, for fuck’s sake, would he want to bring Jason? Convict, killer, legally dead, legally-related-to-him Jason. Jason, who only a few months ago held a knife to Tim’s neck and wanted to cut; Jason, who still has no name for this thing they’ve become, allies or friends or something else. Jason, who thinks of Tim all dressed up, suit spread across his shoulders and tie close around his neck, and feels his breath catch. How can that be something that Tim wants to put out there?

And that’s the problem: because why would Tim want Jason for anything?

He knows he’s been silent for too long when Tim speaks up again.

“Look,” he says, sounding quieter, wearier. “You said it yourself, that maybe it would’ve been better doing this stuff as a kid if you’d been there. I just thought...maybe you could help me out now.”

And, well, shit. Because Jason can’t say no to that.

He closes his eyes, shaking his head at himself, and sighs. “Alright.”

  
  
  
  


Here’s the thing about Jason: he’s always been a street-rat.

Before that night in the alley, jacking the tires off the most famous car in all of Gotham; before Batman swooped down and made him his partner, before Bruce Wayne took him in and made an orphan into a son again; before all that, Jason was a nobody, a little lost boy squatting in an abandoned, dilapidated apartment building in Crime Alley, not so different from the apartment he’d shared with his mother before she’d died and left him alone.

He still remembers the days when everything he had could be fit into a single cardboard box, his few toiletries and the small things he’d kept from before, cheap plastic toys and a few things that reminded him of his mother; the rest he could carry on him, his four shirts and two pairs of jeans layered under his too-big, hole-filled hoodie.

The first thing Bruce had done after he’d officially adopted Jason was to send him out shopping with Alfred. Jason remembers standing in the middle of a very large department store, surrounded by what seemed like leagues and leagues of shiny, brand-new, hugely over-priced clothes and thinking that the cost of everything here could feed his entire neighborhood for a year.

He’d run from the store, dodging sales attendants and other customers, leaving a trail of startled exclamations behind him. When Alfred found him, sixteen blocks later, there’d been something sympathetic in his eyes, and Jason had looked away, angry and ashamed and not entirely certain why he was either. Alfred hadn’t said anything, had just steered him back towards the car and asked him where he wanted to go, instead.

And when Jason gave him the name of a cheap thrift store a few blocks from his old neighborhood, Alfred had only nodded and said, _As you wish, Master Jason._

He’s never thanked Alfred for that, he doesn’t think. Chalk it up as one more thing he’ll need to do someday.

The point is, Jason isn’t much of a clothes person. That’s not to say that he’s in the habit or even much likes wandering around naked. There are times, sure, when he wanders around his tiny apartment in nothing but a tank and an old pair of sweatpants, but most of the time finds him in at least one full layer, and more once the weather gets cold, too used to winters without heat where his only warmth came from whatever clothes he could find to wrap himself up in.

Jason’s a guy who appreciates the basics: cheap, sturdy pairs of jeans which eventually wear in in all the right places; three-packs of plain cotton t-shirts in black and white, offset with old band shirts for $1.99 at the thrift store. The brown leather jacket that became part of his Hood regalia was one he picked up at a diner, left for months in the lost-and-found bin behind the counter; the black one he wears when he’s just Jason came from a street stall in Blüdhaven, just after he left Gotham to begin his training on Talia’s dime.

The only thing he’s consistently spent good money on since he left the streets were his shoes, cringing at the memory of his old Converse, worn ratty and full of holes and slightly too small, filling with grimy gutter water and smudged with dirt. These days he wears Doc Martens boots, a hundred and forty dollars and worn until he can’t anymore, fitted and comfy even when he’s dropping five stories onto a rough tiled roof wearing twenty extra pounds of gear and weapons. He’s done it before, and while he’d walked away with bruises everywhere else, at least he hadn’t had to worry about sore feet on top of everything else.

And yet, despite all that, tucked away in the back of his closet is a zippered garment bag containing a single pair of black slacks and a matching black jacket, a dark red dress shirt hung underneath, all neatly ironed and pressed the way Alfred taught him when he was fourteen and curious about everything. In another travel bag set on the floor right beneath them are a pair of black leather shoes and a simple black leather belt.

Jason takes the garment bag down, unzipping it slowly, and carefully lays everything out on his bed, then takes a step back and stares.

He’s still not entirely certain what odd impulse made him buy the clothes in the first place; Alfred’s voice, perhaps, telling him that every respectable young man should have at least one set of formal clothes. At any rate, he’d bought them when he’d returned to Gotham as the Hood, and then immediately hid them away. Most days he forgets they’re even there.

But not tonight. Tonight, he gets to put them on, piece himself into something that might pass as respectable company beside Timothy Drake-Wayne, socialite and businessman and Gotham junior royalty.

Jason stares for another moment, feeling bewilderingly lost. Then he takes a deep breath and reaches for the hem of his shirt, drawing it up over his head and throwing it aside before reaching for the dress shirt with shaking fingers.

It’s gonna be a long night.

  
  
  
  


The dinner starts at eight; Tim knocks on Jason’s door at 7:50, just in time to make sure they’re fashionably late. Jason doesn’t spend any time wondering how Tim even knows where he lives; he hadn’t offered that information, and Tim hadn’t asked, but Jason’s learning that Tim always knows more than anyone thinks he does, that he collects information like breathing, tucking everything away against the possibility that he might someday need it.

Jason’s been standing by the window, jacket off and hung carefully over the back of a kitchen chair, staring out at the street down below, too nervous to sit in case he wrinkles his fancy clothes. He was watching when Tim pulled up out front, his shiny bright red Stingray looking out of place on the dingy street, ostentatious and beautiful. It’s a playboy car, that’s for certain, Jason thinks.

Then Tim steps out and Jason feels his breath stutter in his throat.

Tim’s wearing a black suit and a white shirt, no tie, but there’s the barest flash of a vest underneath, deep red, and Jason’s brain helpfully supplies a sudden image of the way it must look wrapped around Tim’s torso, fitted and close around his ribs. They’ll match, he realizes with a sudden jolt, Tim’s vest and Jason’s shirt and both of them covered in black over it all.

Jason steps back from the window, takes a deep breath; by the time Tim is knocking on the door, Jason’s managed to regulate his breathing, no hint of his thoughts on his face.

“It’s open,” he calls, walking across to left his jacket gingerly off the chair. He hears the door open behind him, Tim’s even footsteps against the crappy hardwood more felt than heard. Jason keeps his back turned as he shrugs carefully into the jacket, stalling another moment by taking care to smooth it down, pressing imaginary wrinkles from the fabric with his palms.

He can practically hear Tim looking around, and wonders what he’s seeing, what tiny details he’s picking up, what new information he’s adding to the file in his head labelled Jason Todd.

What does Tim make of his ratty old couch, horribly stained but more comfortable than anything else Jason’s ever sat on? What does he see in Jason’s walls, holey and stained like the couch, but covered in places with pinned-up posters, bands and art prints and local events? What does he think of the chair in the corner, army-green velveteen and round with a half-circle back, wedged in next to the window, Jason’s imprint clear in the places where the fabric’s been mussed? What of the shelves along the wall stuffed with books, their spines all bent and broken and repaired with tape, the phonograph on the left beside a stack of old records?

There’s too much of himself here, Jason thinks suddenly. He feels strange, his skin too tight, his bones feeling jittery inside his hands. He feels panicky, almost, the thought of all the parts of him that Tim, with his sharp eyes and giant brain, could pick apart before Jason ever had the chance to tell him not to.

He turns around, a thread of relief running through him when Tim turns to face him, looking away from Jason’s living room.

“So,” Jason says, spreading his arms. “Is this good enough?”

For a moment Tim doesn’t say anything, just stares. Then he nods, slowly.

“Yeah,” he says; his voice is light, but there’s something unreadable behind his eyes that makes Jason twitch, like nerves or adrenaline or both.

“Yeah, that’ll do just fine.”

  
  
  
  


The ride to the restaurant is silent, but not uncomfortably so, despite the way Jason spends the whole time with his hands resting awkwardly in his lap, eyes darting around the shiny interior of the car, itching to touch every inch of it. Tim drives easily, left hand resting at the top of the wheel, right hand steady on the gearshift, motions fluid and natural in a way that makes the back of Jason’s neck heat slightly.

Watching Tim drive is a bit like watching him fight, the same ease of movement, the same impeccable timing, the same surety and confidence that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He corners easily, pulling out of Jason’s neighborhood and heading south, merging smoothly with the traffic, weaving in and out of cars and trucks like an eel, the road all but silent beneath them. Jason smooths a thumb over the soft leather of the seat, lets his eyes trail the curved line of the dash.

They’ve been driving for nearly ten minutes before Jason finally finds his voice.

“So, how much did this pretty ride of yours cost you?”

Tim’s cheeks pink slightly. “Sixty-thousand, give or take. And then Bruce let me put another twenty-five into it to add in some modifications.”

Jason’s eyebrows have jumped so high that he thinks he might develop new wrinkles from them. “What kind of modifications?”

Tim shrugs. “The usual. Boosted the engine a bit, added the option for Nos, reinforced the axles a bit. Beefed up some of the safety features. Added some things to the computer system, too, some extra security and communication stuff.”

“You turned it into a Bat car,” Jason surmises, shaking his head. “Bat car for a baby bird.”

Tim shrugs a little, grinning. “I might’ve sort of missed having the Redbird,” he admits, reaching out to stroke his fingers over the dash for a moment. “Besides, this baby’s already a hot car. I just made her even hotter.”

Jason rolls his eyes, smirking. “I’m assuming you’ve named this one, too.”

“Of course,” Tim says, reaching out to pat the dashboard. “I call her Cardinal.”

Jason nods, looking out the windshield at the hood, red paint shining under the streetlights. “It suits her.”

Tim looks over at him for a second, just a tiny glance, a small smile on his face, something happy and strangely grateful and maybe a tiny bit relieved, though Jason can’t think what he’d have to be relieved about.

“I’m glad you think so,” Tim says.

They lapse back into silence, but the small smile stays on Tim’s face.

  
  
  
  


There are people milling about outside when they pull up in front of the restaurant, women in shimmering dresses and precarious heels, men in sharp suits in dark colors, all holding cocktails or glasses of wine or champagne. The press is everywhere, accosting people here and there with their giant microphones and bigger cameras.

Tim pulls the car up to the valet stand, handing the keys over and he gets out, slipping the man a large wad of bills as he does. Tim catches Jason’s widened eyes and shoots him a smirk and a wink.

“It keeps them from poking around,” he says, coming closer. “If I drop that much cash on the valet, then they’ve got a good idea how much I’ll bring against them in court if they so much as breathe wrong on the car. Normally I hate doing it,” Tim concedes, looking slightly guilty. “But in this case, it keeps anyone from noticing that the car’s been modified, and it helps me keep my cover here.”

“You really do put your all into your covers, don’t you?” Jason murmurs, shaking his head slightly. He’s not certain if he’s awed or if he just can’t relate; he’d always hated cover work, could never let go of himself for long enough to be someone else, even for a little while. But it suits Tim well enough, he supposes.

Tim gives him a look, oddly searching like he knows what Jason’s thinking, but he doesn’t say anything, just tilts his head slightly, gives Jason a smile, and starts walking away. Jason takes two hurried steps to catch up, settling at Tim’s side as they make their way forward.

“Once more into the breach, dear friend,” Tim mutters under his breath. “Hopefully this won’t be too painful.”

Jason looks around, taking in the way they’re being stared at, people turning to whisper and mutter to one another, the way the reporters prowl around like so many velociraptors, cold-blooded and bloodthirsty. It’s terrifying.

“I’m going to get eaten alive,” Jason says hollowly. “They are going to use me as an appetizer.”

“Nah,” Tim says, dismissively, winding his way slowly towards the doors. “You’ll be fine. They don’t know you, they won’t pay any attention to you, except some brief mention that you’re with me. I, on the other hand, am going to be spending all evening pretending people aren’t trying to stare holes into the back of my head.”

Jason follows, trying not to look too poleaxed at the lights and the camera flashes and the way everyone is watching as they make their way, side by side, up the honest-to-god red carpet that’s been laid out from the street to the door. Tim has a smile plastered on his face, wide and soulless and so incredibly fake, at least to Jason’s eyes.

“It’s really, _really_ creepy when you do that,” Jason mutters, bowing his head slightly towards Tim.

“Learned it from the best,” Tim murmurs back.

Jason smiles, giving the reporters his own brand of public persona, his more daggers and glass, classic bad-boy smirk across his mouth. He almost wishes he’d worn his leather tonight.

“Let me guess,” he says as they’re caught by another group of cameras. “Dear old Brucie?”

“Who else?” Tim agrees. The corners of his smile are starting to look strained, and Jason’s relieved when Tim reaches out, just two fingers against his elbow to turn him towards to the door.

“Remind me again why I agreed to come?” Jason asks, wincing as a camera goes off as they pass, bright white flashing in his eyes.

“Because you’d feel guilty for making me do this alone?” Tim suggests, shrugging minutely.

Jason resists the urge to grimace. “The free food better be worth it, Drake. This is the worst thing I’ve ever been subjected to.”

“You’ve been shot and stabbed and maimed,” Tim points out, raising one eyebrow. “You’ve been tortured and _blown up_ , literally. You’ve been target number one of just about every single gang in the city, usually all at the same time.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, shifting uncomfortably. “But I could shoot or fight by way out of all of those. I can’t exactly whip out a gun here and go to town on Gotham’s high society assholes.”

“Well,” Tim says, shrugging again. “At least you’ve got me.”

Jason turns to look at him. Tim’s looking back, his smile more genuine than he’s seen since they arrived. Tim leans over slightly, just enough to bump Jason’s arm with his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Jason says, swallowing, without looking away. “Guess that helps, doesn’t it?”

  
  
  
  


They’re set upon almost immediately by a reporter, all bleached hair and blindingly white smile in a screaming pink dress, who shoves a microphone in Tim’s face, utterly ignoring Jason’s presence, and starts firing questions at him about how he feels about the restoration of the neighborhood and the money being brought into the area with this restaurant and his predictions on the success of tonight’s venture.

“I think trying to revitalize the neighborhood is a fantastic goal,” Tim tells her, bland and grinning. “But the real measure of it will be in the investment and the effort made by the people who live here and the business they can spark themselves.”

“Well,” the woman says, winking salaciously. “I guess it’s safe to say that Wayne Enterprises will be putting its _full support_ into bringing these neighborhoods back to life.”

Jason clenches his jaw, resisting every impulse he has to tell this stupid, simpering woman that she’s wrong, that the neighborhood isn’t dead, it’s just that it’s been strangled for so long by the richer parts of town that people like her, like the idiots standing around in their fancy suits, can’t even begin to understand how very much alive the rest of the city is.

Tim’s smile takes on a sharper edge. “There is life here already,” he says, echoing Jason’s thoughts. “It just lacks the ability to stand on it’s own at the moment. But we’re working on that.”

“And what an _admirable_ sentiment,” the woman gushes, completely missing the point. “We’ll be looking forward to seeing what Wayne Enterprises brings to the table in this effort.”

She gives Tim another cheeky, too-white smile and saunters off to trap her next victim. Jason watches her go with barely-concealed disgust; next to him, where their arms are touching, he feels Tim shudder. When he looks over, Jason can see a muscle in Tim’s jaw working, the effort he’s clearly having to put into making sure his vacant playboy smile stays in place.

“God, I hate these people,” Tim mutters between his teeth. “I have no idea how Bruce managed to do this for so long without murdering anyone.”

“I could make it look like an accident,” Jason offers, only half-joking. “I’m pretty good at that, you know.”

There’s a man off to their left who’s making loud, obnoxious comments about how lovely it will be _once the area is re-zoned and we can start development, you know, get some decent quality folks in here for a change._ Jason wants to string him up by his extremely large mustache and leave him to the mercy of the folks who do live in the area, hard-working and ill-paid and spat on, and angry as hell about it.

“Don’t tempt me,” Tim says, grimacing slightly. “I’m just glad we’ve got our own table. If I had to sit with these people all evening and be all polite and sociable and pretend to agree with them, I think I’d actually be sick.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Jason mutters.

  
  
  
  


The interior of the restaurant looks kind of like what might happen if a like a spaceship got drunk at a rave and never quite cleaned up after.

It’s all shiny chrome and glass lines, sleek and futuristic in that way that makes modernism look retro. It’s highlighted with multi-colored LED accent lights everywhere, under the bar, the tables, in the corners near the ceiling. The whole effect is mildly disconcerting, low lighting reflecting off every possible surface in every possible direction, giving the impression of a large house of mirrors, tables which don’t quite appear to be tables, walls might be glass partitions or might just be large reflective panels or possibly just open space.

Jason’s just glad that their table is in a corner, two walls that Jason knows are definitely actually there at his back.

There’s no menu, not for this dinner; all the dishes have been pre-selected for an _optimum taste experience_ , according the the speech the head chef makes at the beginning after the crowd had been ushered inside and to their seats. Jason sits, eyebrows rising with every word the man says, the chef’s speech littered with disconcertingly-scientific jargon and technobabble.

Once the man starts talking about using centrifuges and liquid nitrogen, though, Jason has to tune him out. He sips at the cocktail he’d snagged from the bar as they came in, a bizarre pile of bright emerald-green gelatin balls sitting in a wide, almost flat martini glass. They burst on his tongue, searingly minty, but at least it distracts him from the bizarre chemistry lecture going on.

He’s surprised he’s being allowed to drink, actually, but he has yet to be carded. And Tim, whose age is a matter of public record and often commented on in the press in the few months since he turned eighteen, was offered a drink the moment he stepped inside, so Jason chalks it up to just another thing that this crowd doesn’t care about. After all, he supposes, when you’re dealing with people who were probably running business empires and sparking political scandals the moment they got out of high school, little things like adhering to the legal drinking age really don’t seem all that important.

Across the table, Tim is poking at his own cocktail, more gelatin bubbles, though his are bright red, floating between layers of what appears to be some sort of extremely thick foam. He’s ignoring the chef entirely, choosing instead to stab at the bubbles with the long, thin pair of forceps which appear to be their only utensils for the meal.

As Jason watches, Tim spears a bubble, carefully lifting it out of the glass. A small blob of the foam comes with it, and Jason stares as Tim’s tongue pokes out to lick at it. Tim’s eyes go wide for a second before he makes a face, glaring at the cocktail.

“It’s lemon,” he says, sounding vaguely betrayed. “And it’s sour as hell, holy crap.”

Jason shakes his head, staring back down at his own intense cocktail. “At least yours doesn’t make your eyes water every time you try to, er. Drink it? Eat it?”

They both pause, staring down at their glasses of gelatin bubbles.

“This is only going to get weirder, isn’t it?” Jason asks after a long moment in which he shakes his martini glass a few times, watching the green bubbles jiggle slightly.

“So much weirder,” Tim says, fervently.

  
  
  
  


It does. It really, _really_ does.

The first course is served on large slabs of smooth black stone, the better, Jason assumes, to show off the food. Or at least, what appears to pass for food here. A whole team of waiters descends in unison, their dark, silvery uniforms making them blend in with their surroundings so that they seem to appear suddenly and out of nowhere, setting down plates and issuing instructions before vanishing again.

And the instructions are necessary.

There’s a giant puffball in a bowl which they’re told is a popcorn cloud; it immediately dissolves into nothing against Jason’s tongue when he stuffs the entire thing in his mouth, leaving behind the distinct taste of an entire bowl of popcorn and absolutely none of the satisfaction of actually having eaten any of it.

There are small cubes of melon, apparently squeezed of their essence and turned into cubes of firm gelatin, which are meant to be picked up and eaten with the long, thin forceps.

There’s a truly bizarre offering of two thin, paper-like discs, bright yellow, apparently glued together with some sort of olive paste, resting on a folded bamboo mat. Jason stares at that one for a long time, waiting for the moment when the hidden camera is revealed, the waiter popping up to tell him it’s all a joke, the whole thing is just a big joke, no really, did you honestly think people ate things like this for real?

Except when he looks around, the rest of the patrons are in absolute raptures, gesturing excitedly at each new dish, their faces lit up with expressions of bliss at the taste of whatever strange concoction they’re eating. It’s almost enough to make Jason suspect that they’ve all been drugged, but then he looks up and there’s Tim sitting across from him, eyeing a platter holding two small parmesan marshmallows, an expression of mingled disgust and fascination making his whole face scrunch up.

“I have no idea what I was expecting from this place,” Tim states, staring at the plate in front of him. “But this definitely was not it.”

“I feel like I should be sitting on the Enterprise,” Jason says, blinking down at his plate. “I keep waiting for the waiter to tell me this next dish is Andorian or something.”

“If this is what the future of food looks like,” Tim says, shaking his head, “then I’d rather go back in time.”

“This looks like something straight out of a high school chemistry lab,” Jason says, poking gingerly at a blob of foam on top of a small patty of compressed something-or-other; it looks a bit like a slice of cork. “Not that I actually ever went to high school,” Jason goes on, “but the point still stands.”

“Well I did,” Tim says, “And I can tell you with certainty that your observation is accurate.”

“I don’t even know what’s supposed to be food and what’s decoration,” Jason says, tilting his head to the side and squinting. “Or the plate, for that matter.”

“I’m not going to lie,” Tim says distractedly, holding up a small caviar-like bubble of...something orange. “A very large part of me wants to take samples of all of this back to the lab in my basement and analyze the hell out of it to figure out whether it’s actually recognizable as food or not.”

Jason blinks, then looks down and regards his plate very seriously for a moment before looking back up at Tim.

“...You don’t happen to have an evidence kit in your car, do you?”

  
  
  
  


Two hours later, they finally manage to make their way to the dessert portion of the meal. The waiter brings out the first dish, and Jason is relieved to find that they’ve been given something recognizable. They’re served a dish set with two artistically-placed cherries covered with something white and flakey, but Jason tunes out the waiter’s description in favor of being grateful that it’s something he knows.

The cherries are followed by a bizarre and bizarrely-tasty honey-flavored foam, scooped up with slices of orange, and a selection of overwhelmingly-flavored freeze-dried berries topped with more foam, this time bright pink.

When their last plates are taken away, Jason can’t help but sigh. He feels a bit like he’s been in the center of a whirlwind for the last two hours. His taste buds have been jerked all over the place, contrasting and conflicting flavors with every tiny, miniscule bite; for all the things they’ve tried, he feels like he’s barely eaten at all. It’s distinctly unsettling.

At the far end of the room, the head chef and the restaurant owners are calling for questions, comments, and observations, opening up apparently-enthusiastic dialogue with the other patrons. Jason ignores them, focusing his attention instead on his glass of wine (plain, liquid, blessedly normal wine), and watching Tim from across the table.

For the moment, Tim’s attention is on the room, watching the other patrons, rolling his eyes at their questions and sipping from his own wine glass to hide his derision. He ought to look at home here, Jason thinks, all dressed up and polished, sitting slouched in his chair with the ease of someone who, if not entirely comfortable with his surroundings, is at least familiar with them.

And yet it seems that Tim only stands out even more, his jacket and vest looking more like a costume than any of the actual costumes Jason’s seen him in. Jason had always assumed that Tim in his rich boy guise would just blend into the background, another rich kid in a nice suit in a sea of rich kids in nice suits.

Instead, Jason thinks he could pick him out in a crowd with no trouble at all, and it’s not just because of the red vest; there are plenty of other vests in the crowd, all on younger men apparently adhering to some dictate of current style. But none of them quite move the way Tim does, his ease and precision even when he’s looking away hinting at his years of training his entire body to obey his every whim.

He stares again at Tim, wondering at the picture they must make together, both of them with their black hair and blue eyes, although Tim’s have a hint of grey where Jason’s are more teal, the shock of white falling over Jason’s right eye.

He wonders how many of these people think that they planned it, planned to show up wearing the same colors. He wonders what these people would think if they knew what those colors really mean to both of them. Black and red, just like the first time they met, like that first night when they sat and watched Star Wars. Red and black like the lives they lead, the lives they’ve bled and bruised for, lived (and died) for, the lives they both know they could never truly walk away from.

But that’s not what he should be thinking about now. He shouldn’t be thinking about work, or about Robin, Red or otherwise, or the Hood, or any of it. He spends enough of his time obsessing and planning and training; this is the closest thing he’s gotten to a night off since the fair, and he should be enjoying not having to run across rooftops and through alleys, should be grateful that his biggest dilemma all night was whether or not his food was actually food.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” Tim says, breaking Jason’s train of thought. “I can practically hear your brain working.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jason snarks, grateful suddenly to be back on more certain footing, “I’ll just stop thinking then, shall I?”

“Let me know if you ever manage it,” Tim says, smiling. “That’d be a handy trick.”

“See if I ever go anywhere with you again,” Jason threatens, but the effect is ruined completely by the smile he can’t quite keep off his face.

“Too late,” Tim says cheerfully. “You’re stuck with me.” He gives Jason a cheeky grin, all old-school Robin charm, the kind Dick genuinely had and that they both learned to copy, after. Jason huffs out a laugh, shaking his head and taking another sip of his wine.

“So, look,” Jason says after a moment. “Not that I’m not flattered and all that you’d bring me, but—”

“But why did I bring you?” Tim smiles, settling back in his seat and looking at Jason with a small smirk. “Why do you think?”

Jason shrugs. “Temporary loss of sanity?”

Tim’s smirk widens. “Well that was obvious,” he says. “But why else?”

Jason resists the urge to shrug again, trying to twitch off the uncomfortable feeling settling across his shoulders. “You mean you had an actual reason?”

“Well, I had to bring someone,” Tim says, holding up a hand, fingers splayed. “And Steph’s out,” he puts down a finger. “She’s busy with her own stuff, and anyway, at this point even pretending she’s my date is just weird and awkward.”

“Probably a good move, not showing up with your ex,” Jason agrees. “Especially one who’s the daughter of a known criminal.”

“Couldn’t use Tam,” Tim continues, ignoring Jason, putting down another finger. “The papers are really loving this idea that we’re engaged or whatever, which neither of us wants to deal with anymore. We’ve been trying to lie low and not be seen together outside of work, so I couldn’t bring her here.”

“Right, makes sense,” Jason says, sipping at his drink.

“I suppose I could have asked Bernard,” Tim muses, abandoning his finger-count to reach for his glass. “But while I like him well enough to maybe go for coffee sometime, bringing him here would imply a certain level of interest and commitment that I don’t actually feel towards him, so.”

Jason blinks, brain whirring wildly. Because he’s not entirely certain, but he’s pretty sure that Tim has just admitted, in a very subtle and sort of roundabout way, that he has an interest in men as well as women. Or at least one man, whoever Bernard is. And if he’s interested in one, there’s always a chance he could be interested in another…

Jason stops himself, cutting off that line of thought like a steel door slamming. Tonight has already been hard enough, sitting across from Tim in this fancy-ass, wacky-science restaurant, watching him grin and smile and laugh, watching the way his shirt cuffs frame his thin wrists, the way the fabric stretches across the swell of his biceps when he moves to reach for his glass. There’s no need to make things even harder on himself by imagining situations that might never be real.

“Okay, so you didn’t have a date,” Jason says after a moment. “There had to be someone else, though.”

Tim shrugs. “Not really. I don’t honestly know that many people. Really the only one left is Dick, but he’s in Blüdhaven,” he shrugs, “and I didn’t really want to show up with my adopted big brother, anyway.”

“I’m your adopted big brother, too,” Jason points out, raising his eyebrows. “And you’re totally fine with being seen here with me.”

Tim levels a look at him, one eyebrow raised incredulously. “You’re still legally dead. You don’t count. And besides,” he adds, leaning forward slightly, fixing Jason with strangely intense eyes; Jason can’t look away.

“Whatever we might be, Jason, we have never been brothers.”

And, really, Jason can’t argue with that. Because it’s true; Tim has never even approached anything that Jason might call _little brother_. There was a point, at the beginning, when they first started this whole thing, when Jason thought that maybe they could be family to each other, that maybe they really could be the brothers Bruce and Dick clearly meant for them to be.

But the more he’d spent time with Tim, the more he got to know him, the more Jason had to admit that there was nothing brotherly about his reactions to Tim; the tiny thrill down his spine when he caught sight of Red Robin soaring across the sky, the shiver of his bones whenever he saw Tim’s unmasked face, the warmth and ache in his fingers whenever Tim was close enough to touch. No, whatever Jason wanted Tim to be, whatever he was, it was something warmer and more dangerous than just family.

“So it was either one of several ill-advised not-quite dates,” Jason sums up after a moment, “your big brother, or me. More or less.”

“More or less,” Tim agrees, leaning back again and humming slightly around the rim of his glass.

Jason shakes his head slightly. “Well, sorry you got stuck with me, then,” he says, self-deprecating little grin spreading across his face.

“I’m not,” Tim says, smiling that same damned unreadable Cheshire Cat smile that he’s been wearing all night. “After all, you were my first choice.”

  
  
  
  


They lapse into silence again. Tim never quite takes his eyes off Jason, and there’s something heavy in his gaze, something weighted and unreadable, that makes it hard for Jason to look away. They sit there for long minutes, each studying the other. Tim’s expression has gone faintly curious, and Jason’s pretty certain that Tim’s brain is working, filing away whatever little observations and conclusions he’s coming up with up in that lovely big brain of his.

Jason’s brain isn’t occupied with anything so organised; his thoughts are a jumble of half-formed questions and vague assumptions, mind flaring briefly with the memory of the rooftop where they sat the first time, and Tim’s arms around his chest after the bowling alley as they zipped through downtown, the press of Tim’s chin on his shoulder at the fair.

Tim sips at his wine, the glass half-obscuring his face,and Jason’s mind flashes back to the streetlight they stood under, Tim’s eyes looking nearly green in the yellow light, face tilted up towards Jason’s, and it would have been easy, so easy, to just lean down the tiniest bit and close that gap between them.

Jason can imagine the press of Tim’s mouth against his, lips slightly chapped, the warm puff of his breath against Jason’s lower lip in the brief moment before Jason leaned down and covered Tim’s mouth with his own. He can imagine it, the slide of their lips, the flutter of Tim’s eyelashes against his cheek as he closed his eyes, the faintest press of a tongue against his teeth.

Jason blinks, feeling himself beginning to blush, and looks away. There’s a feeling in his chest like crashing waves; his skin is prickling, static sparking in his veins. He flexes his hands under the table, out of sight, pushing away the slight tremor in his fingers that wants to still itself by reaching out for Tim. Instead, Jason reaches for his glass again.

Across the table, Tim regards him with a small smile, and says nothing.

  
  
  
  


They manage to make their escape from the restaurant of questionable science ten minutes later, sliding out the door and down to the sidewalk while everyone else is milling about, getting ready for the next round of attacking reporters.

The valet attendant jumps up the moment he sees them, sending another attendant running for the car. They stand in silence for the brief minute before the attendant brings the Stingray to a halt in front of them, and then Tim’s rounding the car, handing off another wad of bills as he goes.

Jason slides into the car only a moment before Tim does, but it’s enough time to let him exhale sharply, taking a deep breath, smelling leather and oil and something uniquely Tim, the scent of him soaked into the interior from all the time he spends in this car. Jason takes a second deep breath as Tim starts the car, letting it out as Tim pulls smoothly away from the curb.

Tim is silent beside him as he pull into traffic, eyes never straying from the road. Jason can’t help but stare at him, though, the small curve of his lips, the way he seems so comfortable like this, so at ease with this silence between them, like he’s already used to simply existing beside Jason, sharing space in a way Jason is certain they’ve never quite managed before.

  
  
  
  


It’s nearly ten minutes before Jason realizes they aren’t headed back toward his apartment the way he thought they would be; instead, Tim’s taken them further south, towards the bridge across the river and into Coventry.

Jason twists in his seat slightly, looking out the window and trying to figure out where they might be headed. Tim notices, glancing over briefly as Jason turns to him, mouth open to ask.

“There’s a pizza place off Dillon and 12th,” Tim says before Jason can say anything. “I figured since I dragged you out to that freakshow of a restaurant, the least I could do was feed you actual food in apology.”

Jason blinks, closing his mouth; he’s not entirely sure what to say. Because, yeah, that dinner had been weird and bizarre, but he’d also gotten to sit across from Tim, watching his hands when he gestured and his mouth when he talked, watching the line of his neck when laughed, throwing his head back. The food might have been insane, but he’d gotten to see Tim smile, gotten to keep him to himself for hours, just for Jason, and there is not a universe in existence where Jason could call that anything but a win.

But Tim doesn’t know that, can’t know that, so Jason opens his mouth again and says, “Yeah, okay. I could go for a pizza, if you’re buying.”

“Of course I’m buying,” Tim says, flashing a grin. “I’m not a cheap date, Jason.”

Tim looks away, and Jason can’t help but be grateful, Tim’s words bouncing around his brain, _date, date, date_. He’s not entirely certain how to feel, because it’s just a phrase, right? Just a common expression, nothing pointed, nothing to say that Tim honestly means it, that he means for this to be a date. And God, he sounds about fourteen, turning Tim's words over again and again in his mind. But that tiny smile is still on Tim’s face, and there’s a bubble of something warm rising in Jason’s chest.

It feels sort of like hope.

  
  
  
  


The pizza place is a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint, barely big enough to hold the kitchen, the rest of the space taken up by a narrow bar lines with battered stools. Tim steps up to the counter, grinning at the man who comes up to take their order.

“One large canadian bacon with onion and artichoke hearts,” Tim says, and then turns to Jason. “And for you?”

Jason blinks; he hadn’t even considered. “Right. Um, I guess sausage and, uh, green peppers. Large, I guess.”

“Ten fifty,” the guy at the counter says as Tim hands over his credit card. “Those’ll be up in just a minute.” He wanders off again, back to the kitchen.

Tim perches himself on a stool, apparently content to just sit there until their pizzas are done. Jason almost expects him to go for his phone, the way so many other people do, but Tim just leans his elbows back against the bar and looks around. He doesn’t quite stare at Jason, but all the same, Jason can’t quite help but feel like, for all his casualness, Tim’s keeping one eye on him.

“So,” Jason starts, just to have _something_ to say. “Canadian bacon and artichoke?”

Tim shrugs, the motion somehow weirdly elegant. “It’s my favorite,” he says. “Has been since I was a kid. It’s weird, I guess,” he shrugs again. “But whatever, I like it.”

Jason holds up his hands. “I’m not knocking it,” he says, smiling slightly. “Just figured you’d be all pepperoni and extra cheese or something.”

Or, he would have, if he’d even spared a moment to wonder what kind of pizza Tim might like. It’s such an insignificant detail, nothing at all important, and nothing that Jason has any reason to know before now, but for some reason it’s bothering him, just like how he doesn’t know Tim’s favorite color, or what kind of music he likes, or any number of other tiny, insignificant details about his life.

“Just because you like all your food to be cardiac arrest waiting to happen,” Tim says wryly, “doesn’t mean that all of us do.”

They lapse into silence again. It strikes Jason anew how easy it is, just like at the restaurant, or back in the car, no tension or weirdness between them. Like this is something they do all the time, something they’re used to, this business of sitting together without speaking, content in each other’s space as though they both belong. The thought makes something twist in Jason’s gut, warm and terrifying.

He doesn’t have time to think about it, though; a minute later the guy comes back to the counter with their pizzas. Tim stands and scoops them both up, balancing the boxes carefully on spread fingers so that their greasy bottoms don’t touch the sleeves of his jacket as they leave. He hands them off to Jason when they get to the car, with a warning not to let the grease get on the leather. Instead, Jason holds them gingerly, a few scant inches above his lap.

They pull out of the tiny parking lot, Tim swinging them back up north again. He looks over, flashing Jason a sly smile. “So,” he says, “my place or yours?”

  
  
  
  


They end up at Tim’s place, by virtue of it being easier to get to, despite being further away.

Privately, Jason is glad; the thought of Tim in his apartment again still feels strange, like being caught in a firefight without cover, too exposed and too dangerous. He thinks of Tim standing in his living room, only a few hours ago, of being so terrified of what Tim might read of him in the room, and still feels caught off guard, uneasy for reasons he still can’t quite explain.

Going to Tim’s place feels like turnabout, somehow, like evening a score that Jason still isn’t entirely sure they’re keeping. Tim certainly doesn’t seem to share Jason’s trepidation; but then, Jason reminds himself, Tim is a master of misdirection and keeping secrets from other people. He might be just as nervous as Jason is, might be trembling slightly under his skin, worried about what Jason will find in Tim’s neat brownstone house.

The brownstone itself is three stories, narrow and tall, with matching windows and high ceilings. The front door opens onto a foyer, stairs going up on one side and a doorway leading to a small living room on the other. When he steps through, obeying Tim’s vague gesture, Jason can see another doorway at the far end of the room leading to the kitchen at the back of the house.

Tim sweeps off towards the kitchen right away. “Just put those down wherever,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the room in general. “I don’t really have a dining table or anything.”

“Right,” Jason says, setting the pizza boxes down gingerly. He can hear Tim rattling around in the kitchen, the quiet thud of cabinets closing, the clink and rattle of things bumping together as he digs around in his fridge.

Jason shrugs off his jacket, hanging it carefully on the rack just inside the door, and looks around.

The two windows in the living room are hung with simple white curtains. Strung up between the windows is a length of string, black and white photographs pinned and hanging from it. There’s a single poster on the wall near the door to the kitchen, the black and blue and red pop-art design of a local band. A cheap area rug has been thrown down on top of the wood flooring in the middle of the room.

Tim doesn’t have a lot of furniture, just a single sofa pulled a little ways away from the wall, an armchair set at an angle to it, a scuffed-up coffee table between them, a standing lamp at the other end of the couch. The upstairs, Jason figures, is probably just as bare.

It’s very blank, and yet somehow Jason can’t bring himself to call it empty. It’s very _Tim_ , in a strange way: everything neat, if not in great shape, nothing extraneous or unnecessary anywhere that Jason can see. As far as he can tell, Tim seems to have bought the place and filled it with the bare minimum of things that he needed, and no more.

Jason’s eyes keep dragging back to the neat little line of photos strung up across the room. He takes two hesitant steps, glancing over at the doorway to the kitchen; when Tim doesn’t magically reappear and tell him to back off, he takes another three, coming to a stop just in front of the windows.

The photos are strung up at what Jason suspects is eye-level for Tim, neatly hung with a tiny clothes pin at each corner, a dozen or so photos all neatly spaced along the line of string. Jason leans in slightly to look at them.

The first is familiar, a view of the Gotham skyline looking south from the bridge across the river, out over the Diamond District and Old Gotham. There were a lot of nights, Jason remembers, when he’d sit up there on top of the supports, looking out over the city, Batman a dark shadow at his side. The memory makes something twist in his gut, and Jason looks away.

The second photo is less familiar, a small shop on a corner, a balding man standing outside with a broom, smiling slightly at the pavement as he sweeps. Beside him stands a girl with dark hair, laughing as she carries a stack of boxes into the shop. Jason thinks he knows the corner, might have passed by it once or twice; there’s an alley across the street, if he remembers correctly, that might be in the right place for this photo to have been taken from it’s opening.

Whoever these people are, Jason thinks, Tim didn’t want them to know he was there.

The third photo is a warehouse down near Chinatown, in the snarl of overpasses and highways before the Dixon Docks. Jason had been caught in a firefight there a few weeks ago, checking up on some loose ends. The Hood’s business didn’t usually take him that far south in the city, but a few drug runners in his area had been caught using kids to sell on the streets, and Jason had chased them all the way across the city to ensure they wouldn’t be doing it again.

In his memory, the warehouse is dark and shadowy, full of dirty concrete and moulding wooden crates, the smell of gunpowder on the air, bright flashes reflecting off the windows every time the drug runners tried to shoot at him.

In Tim’s photo, the warehouse is full of light streaming in from the high, grimy windows. The stacks of crates cast lines of artful shadows across one another, cutting the floor into patterns of sharp light and shadow. In the middle of the photo is an empty stretch of floor, free of shadows, and in the middle of that is a small scattering of spent shell casings.

Jason stares at the photo. His breath is caught in his chest, his fingers itching to reach out, to touch the photo, as though feeling it beneath his fingers will make it real. Because he knows the pattern of those casings, had stepped over them himself when he left the warehouse.

Tim had to have been there only hours later, had to have stood where Jason had stood, and took this picture, turning something dark and grim and violent into something bright and airy and beautiful.

Jason’s stomach flips strangely, his throat feeling tight. He’s not sure how to feel about that.

  
  
  
  


He’s saved by the sound of Tim’s footsteps.

“I have no idea what you want to drink,” Tim says, coming back in with paper napkins in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “So feel free to forage for whatever you’d like. I’ve got water, orange juice, soda in like sixteen flavors. Possibly milk? Coffee. Lots of coffee.”

Jason resists the urge to hunch into himself, shrugging his shoulders instead. “I’m fine,” he says, stepping back over to the couch.

Tim is already sprawled at one end, glass set aside on the coffee table as he reaches for his pizza. He’s lost his jacket between the living room and the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Jason blinks, staring at the strong lines of Tim’s forearms for perhaps a second too long before he shakes himself mentally and reaches for his own pizza.

They eat in silence again, still strangely comfortable. One of the windows has been left open, and Jason can hear cars passing on the street, the rattle of a cat knocking over a trashcan, the sound of a neighbor’s radio left on a little too loud.

Next to him, Tim stretches out with his feet up on the table, neck crooked at an incredibly uncomfortable-looking angle against the back on the couch. His pizza box rests on his stomach, pizza already half-eaten. His face is oddly blank.

Or, Jason thinks, not blank, exactly, but unreadable. There’s nothing of Tim’s thoughts showing on his face, nothing of his mood. He doesn’t even look quite tired, despite the dark shadows beneath his eyes. It’s unsettling, a little, and Jason is struck suddenly with the thought that maybe this is what Tim looks like all the time, that this is his default, this blank slate onto which people might project whatever they wanted, whatever their assumptions lead them to conclude about him.

Jason doesn’t want to think too hard about what it means that he has nothing to project onto Tim, that he appears to see him just as he is.

  
  
  
  


“So,” Jason hears himself saying, eventually. “Photography, huh? How’d you end up doing that?”

Tim shrugs. “My parents wanted me to have a hobby, since I refused to do sports. Photography lined up well with my other goals.”

Jason raises one eyebrow. “And those goals would be?”

Tim’s gaze slides to Jason and he grins, sharp. “Proving that I knew who Batman and Robin were.”

Jason blinks at him for a moment. The laugh surprises him, bubbling up from his chest. Tim watches him, sharp grin still in place, but the edges of it seem to soften as Jason laughs again.

“You’re something else, baby bird,” he says, shaking his head. “You know, most kids just want to be cool, have the best bike or whatever. You wanted to unmask Gotham’s heroes.”

Tim shrugs, unapologetic. “I was nine and dead certain I was right. I just needed proof.” He smirks. “And I was sort of stupidly determined at that age.”

Jason feels his eyebrows creeping upwards. “Only at that age?”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Shut up. Besides, I was right, wasn’t I? So it was totally justified.”

Jason huffs out another laugh, shaking his head. “And I used to laugh at you being a detective,” he jokes. “I take it you finally got your perfect proof-worthy shot?”

Tim’s grin widens, becoming more genuine. “Took a while,” he says, “but yeah, I got it in the end.” And he sounds so proud, so excited, even all these years later, than Jason can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.

“I got some really great pictures,” Tim says, clearly warming to the subject. “Most of them were just pure luck. I mean, I was nine, I didn’t know what I was doing. Nearly got myself killed a few times, too,” he adds, wryly.

“I’m assuming you got better about that,” Jason says, dryly. He’s ignoring the way his heart faltered for half a second, brain rattling with the image of a tiny version of Tim falling from a rooftop or out of a window to crumple, motionless, on the ground.

“Well, I learned which buildings I could actually climb,” Tim says, shrugging. “And how to tell shitty fire escapes from ones that could actually hold a person’s weight.”

“Must’ve made it easier once you became Robin,” Jason says; he’s proud of the way his voice comes out casual, no trace of the bitterness and resentment he’s been trying so hard to get rid of.

Tim shrugs. “Yeah, a bit. Mostly it helped that I already knew the city pretty well at that point. Saved me a lot of time when Bruce was first showing me the patrols he wanted me to use.”

Jason snorts. “Comes in handy, doesn’t it?”

“You’d know,” Tim says, smirking. “Bruce ran me through the gauntlet, though, when I first started. I think he was pissed that I’d basically thrown his entire secret life in his face.”

“How did you figure it out?” Jason asks, frowning. Because that’s the part he’s never heard before. He’s heard all about little Tim Drake busting in on Bruce after Jason died, waving around a handful of photos and demanding to be allowed to take on the role. But he’s never heard exactly how Tim had even known in the first place.

Barbara had been kind enough to fill him in when he’d come to her after he’d first gone after Robin, gone after the Replacement. She’d sent him a note and he’d gone, scraping and bowing and not quite managing to apologize, but she’d heard it all the same. She’d been the one to tell him about Dick, about Bruce, and how they’d managed after his death. She’d been the one to tell him about the kid who’d bullied the Batman into letting him take on the Robin costume.

It all sounded so quaint, really, a classic story of a young man striving to prove himself to a greater, wiser mentor. But they’ve never been that simple, any of them, and that more than anything is what convinces Jason that there’s more to Tim’s story than Jason’s heard before.

Tim shrugs, looking away. “I met Dick a few years before,” he says, voice too casual. “When I saw Robin flipping around Gotham... Well.” He rolls his eyes, shrugging again. “Dick’s never exactly been one for subtlety, has he?”

Jason snorts, shaking his head, because it’s true; Dick has always been the showiest of them all.

“You recognized him?” he asks.

“Pretty much,” Tim says. “He’s got some signature moves, if you know what to look for, stuff he’s kept from the circus.”

“And you were looking,” Jason muses, leaning back to stare at Tim.

Because that’s what Tim does. He looks. He watches, he observes, he sees everything. It’s terrifying, sometimes, especially being on the receiving end of Tim’s scrutiny, but there’s still some part of Jason that can’t help but be in awe of it, the way Tim soaks up information like a sponge, catching everything and storing it all away to be inspected and pieced together later.

“After that,” Tim is saying, “it just made sense to keep going. It was cool, you know, watching Batman and Robin do their thing all across the city, knowing I was probably the only person who really saw them like that.”

“How often were you out there?” Jason asks, curious.

Tim shrugs, looking slightly sheepish. “About once a week, in the beginning. Twice, sometimes, when I could get away with it. I went out more as I got older, though.”

“And your parents never noticed?”

Jason can’t help the incredulous tone to his voice. Because Tim’s told him a bit, a tiny bit, about his parents, about how they weren’t around much, but Jason can’t believe that no one noticed a young boy sneaking out in the middle of the night once a week to race over rooftops and down grimy streets to take pictures of a vigilante and his young sidekick.

Tim shrugs, but there’s something brittle about the motion. “Once I was supposed to be in bed, there wasn’t really anyone to notice anything,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Mrs. Mac had just started as our housekeeper, and she never bothered to check on me after about ten. And when my parents were home, I don’t think it ever occurred to them that I would ever sneak out of the house.”

_I think I want to punch your parents_ , Jason thinks, inanely, insanely, for a split second. He almost thinks about saying it out loud, if only because he thinks maybe Tim needs to hear someone else say it.

Instead he asks, “What did you do once Dick left?”

Tim raises one eyebrow. “Kept taking pictures of Robin, of course.”

And that. Well. That should have been obvious, really. Because it’s not like Jason ever hid, not like Tim could have ever missed that there was a new Robin swinging along behind Batman. It’s just that Jason had never actually considered it before, that Tim might have been just as interested in him as he was in Dick and Bruce. Somehow in his head, he’d always assumed that all of Tim’s pictures were from before Jason was around.

Even now, there are times when Jason feels like he’s still standing in Dick’s shadow, in Bruce’s even longer one, the second son, never as good as the first. Never the good son. There had been times, so many times, when Jason had caught Bruce watching him with that look on his face like he’d be disappointed if he didn’t know how to school his expression to something else. Like maybe he hadn’t ever expected anything better of Jason in the first place.

But somehow, in all that, Tim had still thought he was worth watching.

Tim is still watching him now, sharp eyes waiting to pick up on every tiny trace of Jason’s reaction. Jason schools his face to stillness. He’s not even sure what his reaction is, whether he’s pleased or confused or annoyed, but he hates the thought that Tim might puzzle it out before he does. So he smirks, insolent and amused, and grins at the way Tim’s eyebrow rises slightly.

“Guess you’ll have to show me, sometime,” Jason says, grinning.

Tim smiles, smug and secretive, like Jason’s just played into a joke he didn’t even know he was making. “Yeah,” Tim says. “I guess I will.”

  
  
  
  


He can’t remember which one of them turned on the TV, shoved into a corner and set on top of a scuffed-up side table, but at some point it got turned on, already tuned to some channel showing old school Bugs Bunny cartoons, and they’d left it there as they finished eating.

Tim gets up at some point to make coffee, asking Jason over his shoulder if he wants some.

Jason makes a face. “Got any tea?”

Tim gives him a surprised look, but then he smiles, small and amused. “Yeah, I think I’ve got some somewhere.”

Jason turns back to the TV, eyes following Roadrunner as he speeds across the desert, but his attention is more than half on the sounds coming from the kitchen as Tim makes his coffee and Jason’s tea, the tap of a spoon, the rush of water filling the pot, the thunk of two cups being set down on the counter.

He keeps his eyes on the screen when Tim comes back in a few minutes later and hands him his cup. Jason takes a deep breath, eyes widening in surprise when he realizes the smell of the tea is familiar, citrus and a little spice.

“Alfred threatened to do my shopping for me,” Tim says, catching Jason’s expression. “Said I at least had to have some staples on hand, including decent tea.”

“Thank god for Alfred,” Jason mutters, bringing the cup to his lips and taking a careful sip. His eyes slip closed as the flavor hits him, warm and strong and exactly the way he remembers. He hums a little, feeling the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile.

He remembers being thirteen, sitting at the table in the giant kitchen at Wayne Manor, watching Alfred pour them both a cup of tea. He remembers the way he’d constantly asked for it after that, desperate for it in a way he still doesn’t quite understand. Something about the warmth, maybe, the ritual of filling the kettle, the wait while it boiled and then while the tea steeped. Maybe it was the flavor, subtle and delicate and like nothing he’d ever had before.

He’d begged Alfred time and time again to tell him where he’d found the tea, but Alfred had always just smiled and told him, _Allow me my secrets, Master Jason. After all, you and Master Bruce have enough of your own._

The second sip he takes is longer, and Jason relishes the way he can feel the warmth in his chest, feeling it almost down to his fingers. He opens his eyes to find Tim watching him, his face as impassive as ever, save for the tiny smile on his lips and the way his eyes are dancing, bright and warm as he stares at Jason over the rim of his own cup.

“Good?” he asks, and Jason almost wants to hit him, because the answer is so obvious, but there’s something in Tim’s tone, like he’s not just asking about the tea.

So Jason just smiles. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s good.”

  
  
  
  


He doesn’t remember falling asleep on Tim’s couch, doesn’t remember the TV clicking off or the weight of the blanket Tim draped over him.

(He doesn’t remember the light brush of fingers at his temple, tracing down the line of his jaw. He doesn’t remember Tim’s voice, soft, saying, _Sleep well_.)

When he wakes, the room is full of soft light, the sun not quite peeking over the tops of the buildings outside, and everything is lit in that sort of rosy glow of early morning. He lies still for a long moment, soaking up the quiet and the feeling of having slept soundly for a few hours; it’s been longer than he’d like since he’d been able to do that.

Jason sits up slowly, letting the blanket that was draped at his shoulders puddle in his lap as he stretches. The implication of it hits him slowly, that he’d fallen asleep and Tim hadn’t wanted to wake him, had covered him instead and left him to sleep. It’s the sort of weakness he’s so careful not to show to anyone, not to Dick or Bruce or even Oracle with all her sneaky cameras.

And yet he’d fallen asleep in front of Tim with no trouble, without even realizing he’d done it.

Jason feels himself flushing and wonders if there’s any way he can sneak out before Tim realizes, any way he can get out before he’s forced to confront this bizarre lapse in security. He pauses as soon as he stands, listening. The house is mostly quiet, but he can hear Tim moving around in the kitchen.

_So much for sneaking out_. Jason sighs, padding over on socked feet (and wow, Tim must have been nice enough to take his shoes off for him, too, because he definitely hadn’t done it himself) to lean against the doorway to the kitchen.

Tim is standing at the stove in a pair of plaid sleep pants and a tshirt and his hair sticking up in all directions, his back turned to Jason as he fries eggs. There’s a plate piled with bacon sitting on the counter, and the toaster is on, a jar of jam sitting ready and waiting next to it. There’s a coffee maker tucked in a corner with a pot already made and a full mug sitting on the counter at Tim’s elbow.

Jason watches as Tim pokes at the eggs, humming lightly, and can’t help the small smile on his face.

“Morning,” Jason says after a minute. His voice is rough with sleep, and he winces at the way it softens his words. There’s something weirdly comfortable about it, like it’s totally normal for him to wake up in Tim’s house and say good morning to him in his kitchen before he’s even properly woken up.

The thought of that _becoming_ familiar makes his stomach swoop, hot and twisting and he feels unsteady. He forces it away, and not a moment too soon, because Tim is turning, smiling over his shoulder at Jason.

“You’re awake,” he says, and Jason’s stomach flips again at the faintly fond note in Tim’s voice.

“I don’t know if there’s anywhere you need to be,” Tim goes on, “but you’re welcome to have breakfast, if you want. I made plenty, just in case.”

“Right,” Jason says, clearing his throat slightly. “Yeah, okay.”

Because he has things to do, yeah, leads to look into, scumbags to threaten, he’s got to drop in at the free clinic down the street from his apartment and the community church a few blocks over. But none of it is pressing and none of it has to be done right now. He has time to sit here with Tim again.

“Breakfast sounds good.”

Tim’s smile widens, and he turns around again to open a cupboard and take down two plates, piling them both with eggs.

  
  
  
  


They eat in the living room, sitting on each end of the couch like they had the night before, the blanket crumpled between them on the cushions. Jason steals most of the bacon, but Tim just shakes his head and laughs around his toast. Tim downs two cups of coffee before they even sit down, handing Jason his own cup before refilling his third. His coffee is strong and aromatic and Jason sighs appreciatively when he takes the first sip.

“I want to marry this coffee,” he says, muffled into the cup he’s holding beneath his nose, inhaling the scent before taking another sip.

Tim laughs. “Should I be worried that you’re going to break in and steal it all?”

Jason shrugs. “I don’t have a coffee maker,” he says. “So probably not.”

The tiny, secretive smile is back. “Guess I’ll have to keep making it for you, then,” Tim says, and Jason doesn’t know what to say to that.

They finish eating in silence again, just the scrape of their forks across their plates and the slurp of coffee as the drink. It’s the easiest morning Jason can remember having in ages, since before he died and came back. He doesn’t want it to end.

Finally, once they’ve finished and Tim has taken their plates into the kitchen to dump them in the sink, they stand in the living room, facing each other. Jason has his jacket in one hand and his shoes back on. He feels awkward, suddenly, in a way he hadn’t while they were eating, still dressed in last night’s clothes while Tim stands in front of him in pajamas, all rumpled and soft and touchable in a way that’s seriously wreaking havoc on Jason’s ability to think right now.

“I should go,” he hears himself say. “Got shit to do today.”

“Alright,” Tim says, easily, nodding and leading the way towards the door. “Let me know if you need help with anything. It’s been quiet in my neck of the woods lately, I’ve been getting bored.”

Jason can’t help but grin, pausing with his hand on the door handle. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

“Please do,” Tim says, smiling up at him, and he’s close, closer than Jason thought he was. And there’s that impulse again, the urge to just reach out and slide his fingers against Tim’s jaw, to tilt his face up so that Jason could press his lips against Tim’s. His fingers are itching, his heart thudding in his chest.

He makes himself stand still.

“I’ll see you around, baby bird,” he says, grinning like he doesn’t want to know if Tim tastes like his coffee.

He’s halfway out the door before he hears Tim’s voice again, making him turn to look back over his shoulder.

“Feel free to come by,” Tim tells him, leaning in the doorway with that stupid soft smile still on his face. “Whenever you’d like.”

And fuck, that’s an invitation, only Jason has no idea what it’s an invitation for. He could ask, he thinks, could turn around and walk the few steps back to where Tim is and ask him, could say, _Do you want me here? Do you want me to stay? Do you want me to stay with you?_

Because he would, he thinks, if Tim asked. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? That’s what it means when you want to be around someone all the time, when you can’t help the way you drift towards them when you see them, on a rooftop or at a bowling alley or at a fair. When they call you and ask you to dinner and it’s not a date, not really, but it’s something, and then you fall asleep at their house, and when you wake up they’ve already made you breakfast.

He could ask Tim, he knows, and Tim would answer, because Tim appreciates honesty, even when it might be uncomfortable or scary or weird, and this thing, this whatever-the-fuck that’s between them, it is uncomfortable and scary and weird and Jason has no idea what to do with it.

Because Jason doesn’t do this. He doesn’t pine for people, doesn’t stare at the from afar, doesn’t wait patiently for the next text message to come through just so he knows someone’s thinking about him. He flirts, yes, and god knows there were enough people he hooked up with in the year after he came back, before he got his head on mostly straight again and stopped flirting, literally, with danger at every turn.

But he doesn’t do this. He doesn’t do dates, doesn’t do pizza on the couch and breakfast in the morning. He doesn’t know how to be casual, doesn’t know how he’s supposed to just drop in on Tim like it’s expected of him. But he wants to try.

Because there’s a part of his brain that’s screaming at him, right now, to not walk away, the turn around before he gets too far. There’s a part of him that wants to walk right back to where Tim is standing and say, _Hey, you should make me coffee and let me drink the taste of it off your lips. You should let me touch my fingers to your skin and trace the lines of your mouth. You should kiss me right here, on your front porch at half-past seven in the morning, because sometimes I think maybe you want to and God knows I’m never going to be able to do it myself._

But Tim’s still standing there, smiling at Jason like he doesn’t know what’s going through his head, and Jason just can’t.

So he smiles, takes a step back, and says, “I’ll take you up on that, sometime.”

And then he turns and walks away, jacket over his shoulder, and doesn’t look back. After all, he’ll be back soon enough.

**Author's Note:**

> ugh, this took me so long to write, I'M SO SORRY. life got super busy and then i had the WOOORST case of writer's block. so big huge sorry to everyone who was waiting for this, and i hope the giant 14k wordcount helps make up for it. but things are finally moving! this is the last part that will be tagged "PRE-relationship"! are you excited? i'm excited! :D
> 
> now, a few notes about the story:
> 
> the food they eat at the restaurant is a real thing! it's a food trend/movement called molecular gastronomy, which is all about taking food apart and recombining it in new, crazy ways with really intense flavor. it's total mad science shit, and weirdly fascinating. the actual dishes themselves are all real things served at [elBulli restaurant](http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.elbulli.info%2Fgallery.htm&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGdySGgmo61iH7qauTSrmz2i84oHg) in spain.
> 
> also, tim's favorite pizza actually IS canadian bacon, artichoke hearts, and onion, from robin #116. i just love that tim's not a typical pepperoni pizza dude, so i figured i'd stick with canon on that one :)


End file.
